Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Is facebook the only source your future generations will rely on?!

image source: shoebox.com This vignette is fun and sad at the same time, but it inspired me to a few reflections...
Today we find ourselves struggling to find info about our ancestors; each and every little bit we find is extremely valuable to us. We look at pictures and we wonder where they were taken, unless we are lucky enough to find info on the back of it, or to have a family member that remembers the story behind it. We try to understand who our ancestors were through the pictures, through their heirlooms, if lucky, through their diaries...
Still, it always feel like we don't have enough information.
Will our descendants feel the same about us?
Many of us share pictures and stories through facebook, blogs and other social networks, but how many of these pictures and stories tell who we really are?

By the time our descendants will come along, there will be so much information that they might actually get overwhelmed if not bored in the end and not be so interested in our story after all.
Even if they are really eager to know more about their ancestors, and will go through our whole facebook account, what will they find? Thousands of links shared? Copy and paste of other people's status? Games played? A gazillion pictures?
Which of these incredible amount of data will really tell what we think?
How will they know what was really important to us? How will they learn from our experiences?
How will they know our testimony?

Even in the cyber era, a book will be the true and tested means to pass our heritage on.
When our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and their descendants will find and go through it, they will understand that if we took the time to put it together, it must have really been important to us.
Whether it is a hardbound book you publish once a year or every 5 years, a scrapbook with pages to update from time to time, whether it is a collection of your traditions, of your recipes, of your achievements, of your very own spiritual thoughts, or all of these and more, I urge you to start writing your personal story, and take a few minutes every week to describe at least the most important pictures of your life so that your descendants will not have to rely on the cyberspace to know who you are.

1 comment:

Ohhh yes! I've thought about this. Too much info on me on the Internet. Gotta be boring. But I am writing all the family stories I can as quickly as I can. THAT is what I'm hoping they will find. And when they do, they will KNOW what was important to me. :-D

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About Me

I am a Genealogist, Family Historian and Personal Publishing consultant.I love what I do. I truly enjoy helping people bring their heritage to life.
I am Italian, and proud of it, but as of January 2008, I am American too.
I was born in Italy and lived there for 30 years until, in 2003, I came to Florida to marry the Love of my Life, Chris and start our Eternal Family.
We now have 4 wonderful boys, Joseph, Jacob Luca and Mattia, and I love them more than anything!
That is why I love my job since it allows me to stay at home, take care of them, and at the same time bring income in my house helping others discover the power of Storybooking and the beauty of Creative Genealogy.

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I love creating with Heritage Makers!It is so easy, and there are 65000 plus embellishments to choose from that help me create wonderful projects!I have always a project going and love the fact that they can be used for just about any special occasion: birthdays, graduation, weddings, anniversary, mothers day, father's day, Christmas, thank yous, just because...I love that I can make my special yearbooks, and write the story of my life to share with my children, so that they might know who their mom is.I lost my dad when I was 13, so I never had the chance to interview him. You never know when it's too late! Don't waste time, call your dear ones today and set a time to interview them ASAP, or even better, interview them on the phone!